Читать книгу The Romance of Natural History, Second Series - Philip Henry Gosse - Страница 6

A very interesting communication from Mr. Williams accompanied one of the consignments, extracts of which I will quote. It bears date "Poverty Bay, New Zealand, 17th May 1842." "It is about three years ago, on paying a visit to this coast, south of the East Cape, that the natives told me of some extraordinary monster, which they said was in existence in an inaccessible cavern on the side of a hill near the river Wairoa; and they shewed me at the same time some fragments of bone taken out of the beds of rivers, which they said belonged to this creature, to which they gave the name of Moa. When I came to reside in this neighbourhood I heard the same story a little enlarged; for it was said that this creature was still existing at the said hill, of which the name is Wakapunake, and that it is guarded by a reptile of the Lizard species, but I could not learn that any of the present generation had seen it. I still considered the whole as an idle fable, but offered a large reward to any who would catch me either the bird or its protector." These offers procured the collection of a considerable number of fossil bones, on which Mr. Williams makes the following observations:—

"1. None of these bones have been found on the dry land, but are all of them from the banks and beds of fresh-water rivers, buried only a little distance in the mud. … All the streams are in immediate connexion with hills of some altitude.

"2. This bird was in existence here at no very distant time, though not in the memory of any of the inhabitants: for the bones are found in the beds of the present streams, and do not appear to have been brought into their present situation by the action of any violent rush of waters.

"3. They existed in considerable numbers—(an observation which has since been abundantly confirmed.)

"4. It may be inferred that this bird was long-lived, and that it was many years before it attained its full size. (The writer grounds this inference on the disparity in dimensions of the corresponding bones, supposing that they all belonged to one and the same species; which, however, was an erroneous assumption.)

"5. The greatest height of the bird was probably not less than fourteen or sixteen feet. The leg-bones now sent give the height of six feet to the root of the tail.

"Within the last few days I have obtained a piece of information worthy of notice. Happening to speak to an American about these bones, he told me that the bird is still in existence in the neighbourhood of Cloudy Bay, in Cook's Straits. He said that the natives there had mentioned to an Englishman belonging to a whaling party, that there was a bird of extraordinary size to be seen only at night, on the side of a hill near the place, and that he, with a native and a second Englishman, went to the spot; that, after waiting some time, they saw the creature at a little distance, which they describe as being about fourteen or sixteen feet high. One of the men proposed to go nearer and shoot, but his companion was so exceedingly terrified, or perhaps both of them, that they were satisfied with looking at the bird, when, after a little time, it took the alarm, and strode off up the side of the mountain.

"This incident might not have been worth mentioning, had it not been for the extraordinary agreement in point of the size of the bird [with my deductions from the bones]. Here are the bones which will satisfy you that such a bird has been in existence; and there is said to be the living bird, the supposed size of which, given by an independent witness, precisely agrees."

ENCOUNTER WITH A MOA.

The story told of the whaler appears to me to bear marks of truth. The bold essay to explore, the terror inspired by the gigantic figure, especially in the solemnity of night, the description of the manners of the bird running and striding, so like those of the Apteryx, with which its bones shew the Moa to have been closely allied, and the inglorious return of the party without achieving any exploit, are all too natural to permit the thought that no more than inventive power has been at work.

And well may the colossus have inspired fear. The bones sent to London greatly exceed in bulk those of the largest horse. The leg-bone of a tall man is about one foot four inches in length, and the thigh of O'Brien, the Irish giant, whose skeleton, eight feet high, is mounted in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, is not quite two feet. But the leg-bone (tibia) of the Dinornis we know measured as much as two feet ten inches, and we have no reason to suppose, considering the disparity that exists in the specimens examined, that we have seen by any means the largest.

Additional reason for supposing these magnificent birds to have existed not long ago, is found in the fact that specimens of their eggs have been preserved. The circumstances attendant on the discovery and identification of these possess a remarkable interest. In the volcanic sand of New Zealand Mr. Walter Mantell found a gigantic egg, which we may reasonably infer to be that of either Dinornis or Palapteryx, of the magnitude of which he gives us a familiar idea by saying that his hat would have been but just large enough to have served as an egg-cup for it. This is the statement of a man of science, and therefore we may assume an approximate degree of precision in the comparison.

I do not know the size of Mr. Mantell's hat, but I find that the transverse diameter of my own is six inches or a little more. If we may take this as the shorter diameter of the ovoid, the longer would probably be about eight and a half inches; dimensions considerably greater than those of the Ostrich's egg (which are about six and a quarter in length), but not what we should have expected from a bird from twelve to fourteen feet in height. And this the rather when we consider that the egg of the New Zealand Apteryx, to which these birds manifest a very close affinity, is one of dimensions that are quite surprising in proportion to the bulk of the bird. The Apteryx is about as big as a turkey, standing two feet in height, but its egg measures four inches ten lines by three inches two lines in the respective diameters. The egg of the Dinornis giganteus, to bear the same ratio to the bird as this, would be of the incredible length of two feet and a half, by a breadth of one and three quarters! Possibly this specimen, though indubitably the egg of one of this great family of extinct birds, may after all be that of one of the subordinate species.

But about the same time as Mr. Mantell's discovery, one of equal interest was made in Madagascar. The master of a French ship obtained, in 1850, from natives of the island, three eggs, of far greater size, and fragments of the leg-bones of an immense bird. These, on their arrival at Paris, formed the subjects of valuable investigations by M. Isidore Geoffroy St. Hilaire[16] and Professor Owen.[17]

The native statement was, that one of the eggs had been found entire in the bed of a torrent, among the debris of a land-slip; that a second egg, with some fragments of bone, was subsequently found in a formation which is stated to be alluvial; a third egg, which the natives had perforated at one end, and used as a vessel, was also found. This last egg was broken in the carriage, the other two arrived in Europe entire.

These two, though nearly alike in size, differed considerably in their relative proportions and shape, the one being shorter and thicker, with more equal ends than the other. The following table shews the dimensions of both compared with those of an ostrich's egg:—

	Ovoid egg.		Ellipsoid egg.		Ostrich egg.
	ft.	in.	li.		ft.	in.	li.		ft.	in.	li.
Longer circumference	2	10	9		2	9	6		1	6	0
Shorter circumference	2	4	3		2	5	6		1	4	6
Extreme length	1	0	8		1	0	5		0	6	4

M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire estimates the larger of the two to contain 10⅛ quarts, or the contents of nearly six eggs of the Ostrich, or sixteen of the Cassowary, or a hundred and forty-eight of the Hen, or fifty thousand of the Humming bird.[18]

The fragments of bone indicated a bird of the same natural affinities as the New Zealand colossi, and of dimensions not widely remote from theirs. Professor Owen thinks that it did not exceed in height or size Dinornis giganteus, and that there is a probability that it was slightly smaller. The Madagascar bird has been named Æpyornis maximus.

The fragments of the egg of the New Zealand bird (still uncertain as to the species to which it is to be referred) shew that the shell was absolutely thinner, and therefore relatively much thinner than that of the Ostrich's egg; the air-pores, too, have a different form, being linear, instead of round, and the surface is smoother. In these qualities, the New Zealand egg resembles that of the Apteryx; in the thickness and roughness of the egg of Æpyornis there is more similarity to those of the Ostrich and Cassowary. The colour of the Madagascar egg is a dull greyish yellow; but it is possible that this may be derived from the soil in which it has long been imbedded. The fragments of the New Zealand egg are white, like the eggs of the Apteryx and Ostrich: those of the Emu and Cassowary are light green.

The willing fancy suggests the possibility that, in an island of such immensity as Madagascar, possessing lofty mountain-ranges, covered with the most magnificent forests, where civilised man has only yet touched one or two spots on the seaward borders, but where these slight explorations have educed so many wondrous animals, so many strange forms of vegetable life, the noble Æpyornis may yet be stalking with giant stride along the fern-fringed hill-sides, or through the steaming thickets; though in the more contracted area of New Zealand its equally ponderous cousins, the Dinornis and the Palapteryx, may have sunk beneath the persevering persecutions of man.

Yet another item of evidence bearing on the recent if not present existence of these great fowls has recently come to light:—the most interesting discovery that one of the genera whose fossil remains had been found associated with theirs is really extant in New Zealand. I refer to the Notornis.

At a meeting of the Zoological Society of London, held on the 13th November 1850, Dr. Mantell made the following communication relative to this discovery:—

"It was in the course of last year, on the occasion of my son's second visit to the south of the middle island, that he had the good fortune to secure the recent Notornis, which I now submit, having previously placed it in the hands of the eminent ornithologist Mr. Gould, to figure and describe. This bird was taken by some sealers who were pursuing their avocations in Dusky Bay. Perceiving the trail of a large and unknown bird on the snow, with which the ground was then covered, they followed the footprints till they obtained a sight of the Notornis, which their dogs instantly pursued, and, after a long chase, caught alive in the gully of a sound behind Resolution Island. It ran with great speed, and on being captured uttered loud screams, and fought and struggled violently. It was kept alive three or four days on board the schooner, and then killed, and the body roasted and eaten by the crew, each partaking of the dainty, which was declared to be delicious. The beak and legs were of a bright red colour. My son secured the skin, together with very fine specimens of the Kapapo or ground parrot (Strigops), a pair of Huias (Neomorpha), and two species of Kiwikiwi, namely Apteryx Australis, and A. Oweni. The latter very rare bird is now added to the collection of the British Museum."

"Mr. Walter Mantell states, that, according to the native traditions, a large Rail was contemporary with the Moa, and formed a principal article of food among their ancestors. It was known to the North Islanders by the name 'Moho,' and to the South Islanders by that of 'Takahe;' but the bird was considered by both natives and Europeans to have been long since exterminated by the wild cats and dogs; not an individual having been seen or heard of since the arrival of the English colonists. On comparing the head of the bird with the fossil cranium, and mandibles, and the figures and descriptions in the 'Zoological Transactions' (Plate lvi.), my son was at once convinced of their identity. It may not be irrelevant to add, that in the course of Mr. Walter Mantell's journey from Banks's Peninsula along the coast to Otago, he learned from the natives that they believed there still existed in that country the only indigenous terrestrial quadruped, except a species of rat, which there are any reasonable grounds for concluding New Zealand ever possessed. While encamping at Arowenua, in the district of Timaru, the Maoris assured them that about ten miles inland there was a quadruped which they called Káureke, and that it was formerly abundant, and often kept by their ancestors in a domestic state as a pet animal. It was described as about two feet in length, with coarse grizzly hair; and must have more nearly resembled the otter or badger than the beaver or the Ornithorhynchus, which the first accounts seem to suggest as the probable type. The offer of a liberal reward induced some of the Maoris to start for the interior of the country where the Káureke was supposed to be located; but they returned without having obtained the slightest trace of the existence of such an animal. My son, however, expresses his belief in the native accounts, and that, if the creature no longer exists, its extermination is of very recent date. In concluding this brief narrative of the discovery of a genus of birds once contemporary with the colossal Moa, and hitherto only known by its fossil remains, I beg to remark that this highly interesting fact tends to confirm the conclusions expressed in my communication to the Geological Society, namely, that the Dinornis, Palapteryx, and related forms, were coeval with some of the existing species of birds peculiar to New Zealand, and that their final extinction took place at no very distant period, and long after the advent of the aboriginal Maoris."

Mr. Gould then read a paper pointing out the zoological characters of the bird discovered by Mr. Mantell, which he had no hesitation in identifying as the species formerly characterised, from its osseous remains, by Professor Owen, under the name of Notornis Mantelli. Mr. Gould, in adverting to the extreme interest with which the present existence of a species which was certainly contemporary with the Moa must be regarded, pointed out, from the preserved skin, which was on the table, how accurate a prevision of its character had been made by Professor Owen, when investigating the fragments from which our first knowledge of it had been derived.[19]

At length I come home to Great Britain and Ireland—the "nice little, tight little islands" where so many of our sympathies properly centre, where natural-history facts and all other facts interest us so much more than parallel facts elsewhere, and where, above all, there are so many more lights streaming into the darkness, and bringing out truth. Let us again look back to the period of the Bison, and Reindeer, and Elk, of the Elephant, and Hippopotamus, and Rhinoceros, of the Lion and the Hyena, and the great Cave Bear, and search among the vanishing traces of the far past for glimpses of evidence when their age ceased to be.

Some dim light falls on the obscurity from the discovery of the fossil remains of man himself—the human bones found by Dr. Schmerling in a cavern near Liege, the remains mentioned by M. Marcel de Serres and others in several caverns in France, associated with fossil relics of this period. But more from the occurrence of flints, apparently fashioned by human art, in superficial deposits, together with the same extinct fossils of the tertiary. Even at the very moment that I write this sheet, my eye falls on the report[20] of an important meeting of the Ethnological Society, for the purpose of discussing this very subject of "The flint implements found associated with the bones of extinct animals in the Drift." Many of the leading geologists and archæologists were present, for the matter has become one of absorbing interest, conflicting, as the facts seem to do, with some assumptions received as unquestioned verities in Geology.

These flints, which seem indubitably to have been chipped into the forms of arrow-heads, lance-heads, and the like, have been found in France in large numbers, as also in other parts of the continent, and in England. They resemble those still used by some savage tribes. In this very neighbourhood, as in the cavern called Kent's Hole near Torquay, and in one more recently examined at Brixham, they are found mixed up with the bones of the Rhinoceros, of the Cave Bear, and the Hyena, At Menchecourt, near Abbeville, they occur in a deposit of sand, sandy clay, and marl, with bones of the same animals, and others, their contemporaries. Concerning this bed, Mr. Prestwich, in a paper read before the Royal Society, May 26, 1859, says that it must be referred to those usually designated as post pliocene, but that the period of its deposit was anterior to that of the surface assuming its present outline, so far as some of its minor features are concerned. "He does not, however, consider that the facts of necessity carry man back in past time more than they bring forward the great extinct mammals towards our own time, the evidence having reference only to relative, and not to absolute time; and he is of opinion that many of the later geological changes may have been sudden, or of shorter duration than generally considered. In fact, from the evidence here exhibited, and from all that he knows regarding the drift phenomena generally, the author sees no reason against the conclusion that this period of man and the extinct mammals—supposing their contemporaneity to be proved—was brought to a sudden end by a temporary inundation of the land; on the contrary, he sees much to support such a view on purely geological considerations."[21]

At the meeting of the Ethnological Society just held, there seems to have been an increasing tendency to admit the hypothesis of the continuance of the Mammalia of the Tertiary into the human era. Mr. Evans, who exhibited specimens taken at a depth of twenty to thirty feet, from a stratum of coarse fresh-water gravel, lying on chalk, and containing an entire skeleton of an extinct Rhinoceros, and overlaid by sandy marl containing existing shells, shewed that the deposit had certainly not been disturbed till the present time, so that the gravel, the bones, and the flints had been deposited coetaneously. He suggested "that the animals supposed to have become extinct before man was created might have continued to exist to more recent periods than had been admitted." And this opinion found support from other leading geologists.

That this conclusion would throw the existence of man to an era far higher than that assigned to him by the inspired Word, is, I know, generally held; and certain investigations, made in the alluvial deposit of the Nile,[22] are considered to prove that man has been living in a state of comparative civilisation in the Nile Valley for the last 13,500 years. But that conclusion absolutely rests on the supposition that the rate of increase formed by the annual deposit of the Nile mud has been always exactly the same as now—a supposition, not only without the least shadow of proof, but also directly contrary to the highest probability, nay, certainty, in the estimation of those who believe in the Noachian deluge. For surely the drainage of the entire plain of North Africa after that inundation must have produced an alluvium of vast thickness in a very brief time; while beneath that deposit the works of the antediluvian world might well be buried. Yet the possibility of there ever having been any greater rate of deposit than within the last 3000 years, the recorder of those investigations, in his unseemly haste to prove the Bible false, strangely leaves wholly out of his consideration.

So, doubtless, concerning other deposits containing fossil remains, whose extreme antiquity is assumed from the known rate of surface-increase now, we ought to remember that we have not a tittle of proof that the rate of increase has not at certain remote periods been suddenly and immensely augmented. There are many facts on record which tend to shew that the rate at which geologic changes take place in certain localities affords no reliable data whatever to infer that at which phenomena apparently quite parallel have occurred in other localities. An upheaval or a subsidence of one part of a country may rapidly effect a great change in the amount of soil or gravel precipitated by streams, without destroying or changing their channels, and yet the deposit may be made sufficiently gradually to allow the burial of shells or of bones of creatures which lived and died on the spot.

The degradation of a cliff, either suddenly or gradually, might throw a vast quantity of fragments into a rapid stream, and cause a deposit of gravel of considerable breadth and thickness in a comparatively short period of time—say a century or two.

Sir Charles Lyell has adduced examples of very rapid formation of certain stony deposits, which should make us cautious how we assert that such and such a thickness must have required a vast number of years. In one of them there is a thickness of 200 or 300 feet of travertine of recent deposit, while in another, a solid mass thirty feet thick was deposited in about twenty years. There are countless places in Italy where the formation of limestone may be seen, as also in Auvergne and other volcanic districts.[23]

From these and similar considerations it seems to me by no means unreasonable that the four thousand years which elapsed between the Creation and the commencement of Western European history should have been amply sufficient for many of those geological operations whose results are seen in what are known as the later Tertiary deposits—the crag, the drift, the cavern-accumulations, and the like. And, as a corollary to this, that the great extinct Mammalia may have extended into this period, and thus have been contemporary with man, for a greater or less duration, according to the species; some, probably, having been extinguished at a very early period of the era, while others lived on to the time I have named, or even later.

But have we nothing better for this conclusion than an assumption of the possibility, and a more or less probable conjecture? Yes; we have some facts of interest to warrant it, or I should not have ventured to introduce the subject in this work. There are facts—besides the admixture of human workmanship with the animal remains in undisturbed deposits—direct evidence, not altogether shadowy, of the co-existence of the extinct animals with living men.

And first, I would mention some circumstances bearing analogy to the exhumation of the fresh Pachyderms of Siberia. Some years ago, a portion of the leg of an Irish Elk, so-called, (Megaceros hibernicus,) with a part of the tendons, skin, and hair upon it, was dug up with other remains from a deposit on the estate of H. Grogan Morgan, Esq., of Johnstown Castle, Wexford, and is now in that gentleman's possession. This leg was exhibited, and formed the subject of a lecture at the time by Mr. Peile, veterinary surgeon, Dublin.

It has been ascertained that the marrow in some of the bones blazes like a candle; that the cartilage and gelatine, so far from having been destroyed, were not apparently altered by time.[24] Archdeacon Maunsell actually made soup of the bones, and presented a portion thereof to the Royal Dublin Society (whether they enjoyed it I have not heard; it must have been "a little high," I fear). They are frequently used by the peasantry for fuel. On the occasion of the rejoicings for the victory at Waterloo, a bonfire was made of these bones, and it was observed that they gave out as good a blaze as those of horses, often used for similar purposes.[25]

Pepper, in his "History of Ireland," states that the ancient Irish used to hunt a very large black deer, the milk of which they used as we do that of the cow, and the flesh of which served them for food, and the skin for clothing. This is a very remarkable record; and is confirmed by some bronze tablets found by Sir William Betham, the inscriptions on which attested that the ancient Irish fed upon the milk and flesh of a great black deer.

According to the "Annals of the Four Masters," Niel Sedamin, a king of Ireland before the Christian era, was so called because "the cows and the female deer were alike milked in his reign." The art of taming the wild deer and converting them into domestic cattle is said to have been introduced by Flidisia, this monarch's mother. Deer are said to have been used to carry stones and wood for Codocus when his monastery was built, as also to carry timber to build the castle of a king of Connaught. These may have been red deer, but as there is good proof that the giant deer was really domesticated, it seems more likely that such offices should have been performed by the latter than by the former.

An interesting letter from the Countess of Moira, published in the "Archæologia Britannica," gives an account of a human body found in gravel under eleven feet of peat, soaked in the bog-water; it was in good preservation, and completely clothed in antique garments of deer-hair, conjectured to be that of the Giant Elk.

A skull of the same animal has been discovered in Germany in an ancient drain, together with several urns and stone-hatchets. And in the museum of the Royal Dublin Society there exists a fossil rib bearing evident token of having been wounded by some sharp instrument which remained long infixed in the wound, but had not penetrated so deep as to destroy the creature's life. It was such a wound as the head of an arrow, whether of flint or of metal, would produce.

In the year 1846, a very interesting corroboration of the opinion long held by some that the great broad-horned Deer was domesticated by the ancient Irish, was given by the discovery of a vast collection of bones at Lough Gûr, near Limerick. The word Gûr is said to mean "an assemblage," so that the locality is "the Lake of the Assemblage," commemorating perhaps the gathering of an army or some other host at the spot. In the midst of the lake is an island, which is described as being so completely surrounded with bones and skulls of animals "that one would think the cattle of an entire nation must have been slaughtered to procure so vast an assemblage."

The skulls are described as belonging to the following animals:—The giant deer (females); a deer of inferior size; the stag; another species of stag; the fallow deer; the broad-faced ox; the hollow-faced ox; the long-faced ox; another species of ox; the common short-horned ox; the goat; and the hog.

The principal points of interest centred in the Giant Deer or so-called Irish Elk. The skulls of these, as of all the larger animals, "were broken in by some sharp and heavy instrument, and in the same manner as butchers of the present day slaughter cattle for our markets, and in many cases the marrow-bones were broken across, as if to get at the marrow."

Of course, if this was indubitable, the conclusion was inevitable, that the Giant Deer was not only contemporary with man, but was domesticated by him with other quadrupeds, and used for food. Professor Owen, however, contended that the skulls of the Giant Deer were not females but males, from which the horns had been forcibly removed, and that the holes in the foreheads were made by the violent wrenching off of the horns tearing away a portion of the frontal bone from which they grew.

In reply to this opinion, Mr. H. D. Richardson of Dublin, whose personal acquaintance with the relics of this noble species is peculiarly extensive, shewed that certain variations of proportion on which the learned Professor relied to prove the skulls to be male, were of no such value, individual animals presenting great discrepancies in these respects: that the total absence of cornuous peduncles from the sides of the forehead, and of the elevated bony ridge, conclusively proved the sex to be female, which was permanently destitute of horns; and that in no case could it be said that the ridge was forced away, since the violence was confined to a small hole in the centre of the forehead.

To put the matter to test, Mr. Richardson experimented on two perfect male skulls. In the one instance the force was applied to the beam of the horns, and the result was their fracture where they are united to the peduncles. In the other case the force was applied to the peduncles themselves, to ascertain whether it was possible to wrench them and the ridge away from the face, when the consequence was, that the skull was completely riven asunder. Indeed to any one who looks at the position of the horns in this animal, and their implantation, it must be self-evident that their violent removal must tear away the entire forehead, and not leave a central hole. Mr. Edward Newman who subsequently examined the specimens speaks decidedly on this point:—"I have not the least hesitation in expressing my firm conviction that the fractures were the result of human hands, and were the cause of the death of the animals. These two fractured skulls correspond too exactly with each other, and with that of a bullock with which I compared them, to have resulted from accident: the edges of the fractures wore the appearance of having been coeval with the interment or submergence of the skulls, and presented a very strikingly different appearance from a fracture recently made, and which I had the opportunity of examining. There were several skulls of the male of the same species, one bearing enormous antlers, but none exhibiting the slightest trace of frontal fracture."[26]

A circumstance of much importance is that these skulls were found in company with those of many well-known domestic animals, as the ox, the goat, and the hog. These skulls were similarly fractured. As it is evident that their demolition was produced by the butcher's pole-axe, why not that of the elk-skulls?

"At the first cursory glance, it may appear somewhat strange that the skulls of the males should invariably have been found entire, and that even the recent discovery at Lough Gûr should form no exception.

"I do not, however, find any difficulty here. In the first place, we may fairly suppose that males, like our bulls, were not equally prized as food. In the second place, the size, as well as the position of the antlers, would render it next to an impossibility to give the desired blow with the pole-axe. In the third place, the greater strength and thickness of the skull would almost to a certainty render the blow unavailing; and in the fourth place, supposing the females domesticated, and the occasional tenants of sheds and other buildings, we may well imagine that the males were excluded from such buildings by the enormous size of their antlers. Perhaps a few only of the males, as in our cattle, were suffered to become adult, one male sufficing for many females. Perhaps the males were allowed free range, the females only being permitted at stated seasons to accompany them. In fine, the more we investigate probabilities, the more we reason from present experience and knowledge, the less difficulty shall we find in the way of believing the gigantic deer of Ireland an animal coeval with man and subservient to his uses."[27]

In a communication subsequently made to the Zoologist by Mr. Richardson, he gives the following additional evidence:—"In the collection of the late Mr. Johnston, of Down, which had been left by his uncle, an attorney, and in which everything was labelled with the accuracy and precision of that profession, is a small brass spear, with a piece of wood still in the socket, with a label, stating it to have been found in a marl-pit, among the bones of a deer. An excise-officer told me that he saw, found in a marl-pit, at Mentrim in Meath, the skeleton of a deer, and a man, and a long knife: the latter, I believe, is rather a short sword, now, I think, in the collection of Mr. Petrie, of Dublin, who told me that some such tradition had accompanied it into his possession. … Dr. Martin informs me that on the banks of the river Suir, near Portland, Waterford, and on nearly every farm, are found, near springs, spaces of frequently seventy feet in diameter, consisting of stones, broken up as if for roads, and lying together in a mass. These stones were evidently purposely broken, and all much of one size, and are charred. These spaces are many feet in depth. The tradition respecting them is current among the peasantry, that here in olden time, a great deer was killed and baked in these stone-pits, the stones having been previously heated like a kiln, and they also distinguish the animal as the 'Irish Elk.' These places are called in Irish by a name signifying the 'Buck's Den.'"

SPEARING THE ANCIENT ELK.

From all these testimonies combined, can we hesitate a moment in believing that the Giant Deer was an inhabitant of Ireland since its colonisation by man? It seems to me that its extinction cannot have taken place more than a thousand years ago. Perhaps at the very time that Cæsar invaded Britain the Celts in the sister isle were milking and slaughtering their female elks, domesticated in their cattlepens of granite, and hunting the proud-antlered male with their flint arrows and lances. It would appear, that the mode of hunting him was to chase and terrify him into pools and swamps, such as the marl-pits then were; that, having thus disabled him in the yielding bogs, and slain him, the head was cut off, as of too little value to be worth the trouble of dragging home; that the under jaws and tongue were cut off; and that frequently the entire carcase was disjointed on the spot, the best parts only being removed. This would account for the so frequent occurrence of separate portions of the skeleton, and especially of skulls, in the bog-earth. No doubt so large an animal would not long survive in a state of freedom, after an island so limited in extent as Ireland became peopled throughout; and supposing the females to have been domesticated, it is quite conceivable that the difficulty or even danger of capturing or domesticating the males, may have caused the species soon to become extinct in captivity, when it no longer continued to exist in a wild state. Thus we may perhaps account for the certainly remarkable fact that no native Irish name has been recognised as belonging to it;—remarkable, because the Irish tongue is particularly rich in distinctive names for natural objects. There exists a very curious ancient poem in that language which professes to enumerate the whole fauna of the island. It is founded on the legend that Fian MacCumhaill was made prisoner by Cormac MacArt, king of Erinn; that the victor promised to give him freedom on condition that, as a ransom, a pair of each wild animal found in Ireland were brought before him on the green of Tara. Cailte MacRonain, the foster-brother of the captive general undertook the task, and succeeded in bringing the collection before the king within a twelvemonth; and in the poem, he is supposed to narrate to St. Patrick the detail and result of his enterprise. Of this poem, which is considered to be as early as the ninth century, the reader may like to see the following translation by Mr. Eugene Curry, containing the zoological portion:—

"I then went forth to search the lands,

To see if I could redeem my chief,

And soon returned to noble Tara,

With the ransom that Cormac required.

"I brought with me the fierce Geilt,[28] And the tall Grib[29] with talons, And the two Ravens of Fid-dá-Beann, And the two Ducks of Loch Saileann.

"Two Foxes from Sliabh Cuilinn,

Two Wild Oxen[30] from Burren, Two Swans from the dark wood of Gabhran, And two Cuckoos from the wood of Fordrum.

"Two Toghmalls[31] from Fidh-Gaibhle, Which is by the side of the two roads, And two Otters after them, From the brown-white rock of Dobhar.

"Two Gulls from Tralee hither,

Two Ruilechs[32] from Port Lairge (Waterford), Four Snags[33] from the River Brosna, Two Plovers from the rock of Dunán.

"Two Echtachs[34] from the lofty Echtghe, Two Thrushes from Letter Longarie, Two Drenns[35] from Dun Aife, The two Cainches[36] of Corraivte.

"Two Herons from the hilly Corann,

The two Errfiachs[37] of Magh Fobhair, The two Eagles of Carrick-na-Cloch, Two Hawks from the wood of Caenach.

"Two Pheasants from Loch Meilge,

Two Water-hens from Loch Eirne,

Two Heath-hens from the Bog of Mafa,

Two Swift Divers from Dubh Loch.

"Two Cricharans[38] from Cualann, Two Titmice from Magh Tualang, Two Choughs from Gleann Gaibhle, Two Sparrows from the Shannon.

"Two Cormorants from Ath Cliath,

Two Onchus[39] from Crotta Cliach, Two Jackdaws from Druim Damh, Two Riabhogs[40] from Leathan Mhaigh.

"Two Rabbits from Dumho Duinn,

Two wild Hogs from circular Cnoghbha,

Two Peatáns[41] from Creat Roe, Two wild Boars[42] from green-sided Tara.

"Two Pigeons out of Ceis Corann,

Two Blackbirds out of Leitir Finnchoill,

Two black Birds (?) from the strand of Dabhan,

Two Roebucks from Luachair Deaghaidh.

"Two Fereidhins[43] from Ath Loich, Two Fawns from Moin mor, Two Bats out of the Cave of Cnoghbha, Two Pigs[44] from the lands of Ollarbha.

"Two Swallows out of Sidh Buidhe,

Two Iaronns[45] from the wood of Luadraidh, Two Geisechtachs[46] from Magh Mall, Two charming Robins from Cnamh Choill.

"Two Woodcocks from Coillruadh,

Two Crows from Lenn Uar,

Two Bruacharans[47] from Sliabh-da-Ean, Two Barnacle-Geese from Turloch Bruigheoil.

"Two Naescans[48] from Dun Daighre, Two Yellow-ammers from the brink of Bairne, Two Spireogs[49] from Sliabh Cleath, Two Grey Mice from Limerick.

"Two Corncrakes from the Banks of Shannon,

Two Wagtails from the brinks of Birra,

Two Curlews from the Harbour of Galway,

Two Sgreachógs[50] from Muirtheimhne.

"Two Geilt Glinnes[51] from Glenn-a-Smoil, Two Jackdaws from great Ath Mogha, Two fleet Onchus[52] from Loch Con, Two Cats out of the Cave of Cruachain.

"Two Goats from Sith Gabhran,

Two Pigs[53] of the Pigs of Mac Lir, A Ram and Ewe both round and red, I brought with me from Aengus.

"I brought with me a Stallion and a Mare,

From the beautiful stud of Manannan,

A Bull and a white Cow from Druim Cain,

Which were given me by Muirn Munchain."

No known allusion occurs in this poem to the Giant Deer.[54] First, however, we must remember that no small number of the animals mentioned are quite unrecognisable; and that of those names to which an explanation is given, many are probably incorrectly rendered. Secondly, if it could be absolutely shewn that no allusion exists to that fine beast, it would not at all disprove its existence a thousand years before. Supposing that the Megaceros became extinct soon after the colonisation of Ireland, and that this was several centuries before the Christian era, the distinctive name by which it had been known might well have died out and become extinct also, among a people unacquainted with letters. Or if a dim tradition of the animal and of its name still lingered here and there, it might well be omitted from a catalogue which professed to give the creatures actually collected in a living state at a given period. It would have been interesting to have been able to identify the Great Elk, but its introduction would have been a glaring anachronism.

The enumeration of nearly a hundred and sixty quadrupeds and birds either indigenous to or naturalised in Ireland at so early a period, possesses, I say, a peculiar interest.

If the editor's suggestion is correct, that the Echtach was a bovine animal, then we have three distinct mentions of this family in the poem—the Wild Oxen, the Echtachs, and the Bull and White Cow. The second and third of these were probably domesticated animals; the first one expressly "Wild." Now at least five distinct species of Oxen are known to have inhabited Europe and the British Isles during the later periods of the Tertiary era, which have been named respectively, Bison priscus, Bos primigenius, frontosus and longifrons, and Ovibos moschatus. Of these, skulls of Bos frontosus and B. longifrons have been dug up in some numbers in Ireland. Some of these bear, in the perforation of the forehead, evident proof of having been slaughtered secundum artem, and therefore of having been domesticated. But one large skull of the longifrons type, now in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, has a cut in the forehead, into which can be accurately fitted several of the narrow bronze "celts," or arrow-heads so frequently dug up in Ireland; a pretty fair proof that this animal was killed by the hunter's arrow, and was therefore wild.

No bovine animals of the true taurine race are now known to exist in an aboriginally wild state; but at the epoch of our earliest historical knowledge of central and western Europe it was far otherwise. Cæsar, describing, under the name of Urus, certain wild oxen of the great Hercynian forest, says, "These Uri are little inferior to elephants in size, but are bulls in their nature, colour, and figure. Great is their strength, and great their swiftness, nor do they spare man or beast when once they have caught sight of him. These, when trapped in pitfalls, the hunters unsparingly kill. The youths, exercising themselves by this sort of hunting, are hardened by the toil, and those among them who have killed most, bringing with them the horns, as testimonials, acquire great praise. But these Uri cannot be habituated to man, nor made tractable, not even when taken young. The great size of the horns, as well as the form and quality of them, differs much from those of our oxen."

It is probable that this race extended widely over Europe, and even into Asia. Herodotus mentions Macedonian wild oxen, with exceedingly large (ὑπερμεγαθια) horns; and Philip of Macedon killed a wild bull in Mount Orbela, which had made great havoc, and produced much terror among the inhabitants; its spoils he hung up in the Temple of Hercules. The Assyrian artists delighted to sculpture on the royal bas-reliefs of Nineveh the conquest of the wild bull by the prowess of their Nimrod monarchs, and the figures, in their minute anatomical characters, well agree with the descriptions and remains of the European Urus. The large forest that surrounded ancient London was infested with boves sylvestres among other wild beasts, and it is probable that these were Uri. The legendary exploit of Guy, Earl of Warwick, in freeing the neighbourhood from a terrible dun cow, whether historically true or not, shews the existence of formidable wild bovines in the heart of England, and the terror they inspired among the people. The family of Turnbull, in Scotland, are traditionally said to owe their patronymic to a hero who turned a wild bull from Robert the Bruce, when it had attacked him while hunting.

What has become of the terrible Uri which lived in Europe at the commencement of the Christian era? Advancing civilisation has rooted them out, so that no living trace of them remains, unless the cream-white breed which is preserved in a semi-wild state in some of our northern parks be their representatives; or, as is not improbable, their blood may still circulate in our domestic oxen.

Yet there is no doubt of the identity of a species found abundantly in Britain in the Tertiary deposits, and named by Owen Bos primigenius, with the Urus of Cæsar. This fossil bull was as certainly contemporary in this island with the elephant, and the hyena, and the baboon, and, strange to say, with the reindeer, and the musk-ox, too—thus combining a tropical, a temperate, and an arctic fauna in our limited island at the same period! What a strange climate it must have been to suit them all!

Professor Nilsson, who has paid great attention to fossil oxen, mentions a skull of this species which must have belonged to an animal more than twelve feet in length from the nape to the root of the tail, and six feet and a half in height. Again, the skull of a cow in the British Museum, figured by Professor Owen, measures thirty inches from the crown to the tips of the jaws! What a beast must this have been! Would not the slaughter of such a "Dun Cow" as this in single combat have been an exploit worthy of a doughty earl?

That this ancient fossil bull was really contemporary with man in Scandinavia is proved by evidence which is irrespective of the question of its identity with Cæsar's Urus. For one of Professor Nilsson's specimens "bears on its back a palpable mark of a wound from a javelin. Several celebrated anatomists and physiologists, among whom," he says, "I need only mention the names of John Müller, of Berlin, and Andreas Retzius, of Stockholm, have inspected this skeleton, and are unanimous in the opinion that the hole in question upon the backbone is the consequence of a wound, which, during the life of the animal, was made by the hand of man. The animal must have been very young, probably only a calf, when it was wounded. The huntsman who cast the javelin must have stood before it. It was yet young when it died, probably not more than three or four years old."

We may, then, assume as certain that the vast Bos primigenius of Western Europe lived as a wild animal contemporaneously with man; and as almost certain (assuming its identity with the Urus) that it continued to be abundant as late as the Christian era.

The Bos frontosus is a middling-sized bovine. "Its remains," says Professor Nilsson, "are found in turf-bogs in Southern Scandinavia, and in such a state as plainly shews that they belonged to a more ancient period than that in which tame cattle existed in Sweden. This species lived in Scandinavia contemporaneously with the Bos primigenius, and the Bison Europæus. … If ever it was tamed, and thereby in the course of time contributed to form some of the tame races of cattle, it must have been the small-horned, often hornless, breed, which is to be found in the mountains of Norway, and which has a high protuberance between the setting-on of the horns above the nape."

This species occurs in a fossil state in some numbers in Ireland; it has also been found in England. It is by some supposed to be the origin of, or, at least, to have contributed blood to, the middling Highland races with high occiput, and small horns.

There is more certainty of the co-existence of the small B. longifrons with man. Some of the evidence I have already adduced. "Within a few years," says a trustworthy authority, "we have read in one of the scientific periodicals—but have just now sought in vain for the notice—of a quantity of bones that were dug up in some part of England, together with other remains of what seemed to be the relics of a grand feast, held probably during the Roman domination of Britain, for, if we mistake not, some Roman coins were found associated with them. There were skulls and other remains of Bos longifrons quite undistinguishable in form from the antique fossil, whether wild or domesticated, which, of course, remains a question."[55]

Professor Owen conjectures that this species may have contributed to form the present small shaggy Highland and Welsh cattle—the kyloes and runts; and a similar breed in the northern parts of Scania may have had a similar origin.

In the Bison priscus, the fossil remains of which occur in many parts of Europe, and more sparsely in Great Britain,[56] we have an example of a noble animal, which, contemporary with all those which have been engaging our attention, survives to the present hour, but is dying out, and would have long ago been extinguished, probably, but for the fostering influence of human conservation. For the species is considered as absolutely identical with the Bison Europæus of modern zoology, the Bison or Wisent of the Germans, the Aurochs of the Prussians, the Zubr of the Poles, that formidable creature, which is maintained by the Czar in an ever-diminishing herd in the vast forests of Lithuania,[57] and which, perhaps, still lingers in the fastnesses of the Caucasus. This, the largest, or at least the most massive of all existing quadrupeds, after the great Pachyderms, roamed over Germany in some numbers as late as the era of Charlemagne. Considerably later than this it is reckoned among the German beasts of chase, for in the Niebelungen Lied, a poem of the twelfth century, it is said,